2011 Top Advisor Rankings: Tennessee

Ranked #1: Michael Gilbert ♦ Michael Gilbert figures out how clients can retire well. He eschews the cookie-cutter approach when figuring out how to cash out their assets to provide income. The advisors' standard approach is to automatically shed equal percentages throughout all asset classes. Instead, Gilbert's staff manually inspects an account, looking for the best things to sell. The result: His clients often get richer distributions, around 6% of assets annually. Under the automatic method, performed by "pro rata" software, clients normally get no more than 4%. Of course, the manual method is more costly. "But by doing it manually you get more business, not less," he says of the higher cost. Gilbert, 58, also counsels clients to "pro-tire" rather than retire, meaning they should leave their full-time jobs earlier than planned. Take six months off, he says, then find a fun part-time job to supplement Social Security benefits and 401(k) distributions-and enjoy life more. -Charles Keenan